Attributed to Giovanni di Marco, called Giovanni dal Ponte

The following condition report has been provided by Karen Thomas of Thomas Art Conservation LLC., 336 West 37th Street, Suite 830, New York, NY 10018, 212-564-4024, info@thomasartconservation.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This picture exhibits rubbing in the paint layers and wear to the gold ground. Dark material lodged in the age-related craquelure combines with the above to soften the overall contrast. Minimal restoration knits together modeling in the flesh passages, and reinforces the shadows. The blue paints used in the Madonna's mantle and in God the Father's garment have suffered from losses and darkening of the pigment; overall toning has been applied to these passages. In the angels flanking God the Father, the deep orange shadows of the folds are strongly reinforced, as are many contours throughout the picture, especially in the upper triangular portion. An even, glossy varnish coats the surface. The wood panel support displays a marked convex lateral warp. Any potential improvement that may be achieved by cleaning this painting should be weighed against the potential wear that will be revealed and restoration required to address it.
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Working in Florence in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, Giovanni dal Ponte is named after the location of his workshop which was situated in the parish of Santo Stefano a Ponte, beside the Ponte Vecchio.  Pietro Toesca and Carlo Gamba grouped together a preliminary reconstruction of the artist's corpus in 1904 with the help of documentation in Florentine archives.¹  It had been thought that Giovanni dal Ponte trained in the workshop of Spinello Aretino, though Miklòs Boskovits contested this, considering him to have assimilated influences from a variety of painters working in the late-gothic style in Florence, including Lorenzo Monaco and Gherardo Starnina.

1.  C. Gamba, "Giovanni dal Ponte", in Rassegna d'Arte, IV, 1904, pp. 177-186; P. Toesca, "Umili pittori fiorentini del principio del Quattrocento", in L'Arte, VII, 1904, pp. 49-58.